


Witching Hour

by Marsalias



Series: Ectober Shorts [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ectober 2018, Gen, ectober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 07:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: Danny's first meeting with the will-o-the-wisps.  Originally written for Ectober 2018.





	Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to go ahead and start moving my old Ectober Week fics from last year over to here before I put up the ones from this year. Enjoy?

Day 1: Witching Hour

.

Danny woke up staring at the underside of his bed. This was not an uncommon occurrence. In fact it was such a common occurrence that not only was the space under his bed meticulously clean and stocked with blankets, a pillow, and a tiny, battery-powered analogue clock (Danny liked listening to it tick), but Jazz had started to psychoanalyze it. It was Jazz's theory that Danny was subconsciously drawn to dark, secure places because of his ghost half and because of his trauma from being constantly attacked. Danny's theories were that he had yet to fully master his powers (which was incredibly frustrating, seeing as he'd had them for over a year now), and that Jazz didn't know the meaning of 'rhetorical question.'

The time wasn't particularly unusual either. The little clock told Danny that it had just barely struck two. He was often up this early, either in a desperate attempt to finish _some _of his homework, or to track down ghosts before they did damage, or had damage done to them.

But he hadn't been doing homework, and it wasn't his ghost sense that had woken him up.

Naturally, he tried to go back to sleep, not even bothering to drag himself back up onto the bed. It was early and he was tired. Yet, no matter how he tried, he couldn't. It felt like someone had poured a cup of coffee directly into his brain. Which was terrible, because it meant that he was exhausted and awake at the same time.

He looked at the clock again. 2:16. He groaned, threw off his blankets, and rolled out from under the bed and into the moonlight streaming in from his window. It was a full moon tonight, and clear. He lost several minutes staring up at the moon, entranced. He had to see it without glass in the way. He had to go outside. _He had to go outside now._

Standing up, he hugged himself, suddenly not at all sure that this was just a case of insomnia. There was something calling him.

This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened, Freakshow and his staff came to mind, so Danny was wary about following this impulse, however benign it seemed. He worried at his lower lip with teeth that were, if he was being honest, a little too sharp to be human, and retreated to the safety of the space under his bed. Even if he couldn't get to sleep, he could wait this, whatever it was, out.

Moments later, he dragged himself back out from under his bed. He couldn't stay. He _had _to go. The thought sent nervous jitters up his spine. He _had _to go. He _had _to.

It crossed his mind that he should tell someone first. Sam was the only one of the trio with a cell phone, and her parents had a tendency to randomly confiscate it, so calling someone was out. Jazz was right next door, though.

He gently pushed himself into invisibility and intangibility, and was overcome with giddiness and euphoria. He almost dove right out the window. But he regained control of himself before that could happen. He had to tell Jazz first, _then _he could go.

He stepped through the wall, grimacing as he passed through Jazz's closet. He knelt by her bed.

"Jazz?" he said. Or tried to, at any rate. His voice _splintered, _and splashed, scintillating like sun on rain, like moonlight on oil, and chased itself away to resonate in the corners of the room as choirs of nearly inaudible whispers.

That was new.

Then he tried to wake Jazz by touching her, but only succeeded in making her shiver as his hands passed through her intangibly. He couldn't make himself either visible or tangible for long enough to wake her. He couldn't stay visible or tangible for long enough to interact with anything. The best he could do was shift his perspective so that he didn't go through things, so that he felt like he was touching them, but he couldn't actually move anything. He knew that he wasn't really making himself tangible when he did this, he was only letting himself interact with the idea of the object. It was entirely in his head. It was like when he was standing on the floor while he was intangible. He wasn't really standing. He just thought that he was, or that he should be.

This was rapidly becoming disturbing. If he was in ghost form, he would be starting to worry about the house's weapons picking him up as a threat. As it was, he was in human form. He would be all but undetectable to humans and their machines. He still had to go.

He walked back through the wall, into his own room, and dropped himself through the floor, landing lightly on the kitchen table. He hopped off, and walked through the living room and the front door.

It was crisp cold outside, and the front steps were slick under his bare feet. First frost. He flexed his toes, savoring the sensation. This was better, but he was in the shadow of the building. He skipped out into the road, spinning when he reached the yellow divider.

There it was, hanging high in the western sky! The full moon!

He laughed, not caring if anyone heard him (they wouldn't, his laughter went the way of his voice, refracted into the crinkle of ice and the hum of halogen streetlights). This was what he had been afraid of? This was beautiful! This was excellent!

Danny raised his hands as if to touch the moon, and saw that, even though he was in human form, his aura was glowing bright. He frowned a little. No one would be able to see him, except for other ghosts, because he was invisible, but this was concerning. Was this something that was going to happen now, every time he went out under a full moon? It hadn't happened before. He shouldn't worry. This was fine.

He breathed out, a long curl of mist winding upwards from between his lips. He didn't know why that happened. His ghost sense was always colder than the air. Logically, it should sink, not rise. Maybe there were ectoplasm particles in it. That made as much sense as anything else related to ghosts.

But he _should _look for the ghost that had triggered his ghost sense. Yep. That was definitely a thing he should do. He giggled, and this time his laughter rang like distant bells.

Something else giggled back, and Danny snapped to attention.

The ghost was small, about the size of a basket ball, perfectly spherical, and glowed bright and green. Danny squeaked. _So cute!_

Needless to say, Danny chased after it. It wasn't very hard to catch. When he did catch it, and snuggled it, hugging it close to his chest, it hummed and rang and played piano music at him. Danny, of course, hadn't the slightest idea what it was saying, but the sounds were _happy _sounds, and the ghost was giving off _happy _feelings, so Danny didn't see anything amiss.

It seemed to like what Danny was saying (something along the lines of _ohmigosh so cute cuddles let me squish you forever I love you_), however, because it let out a high-pitched trill, and suddenly there were a lot more of them, all of them different sizes and colors. The largest was fuchsia, and about the size of a beach ball, the smallest were pinhead-sized, and twinkled like stars.

Danny made a keening sound that was ghost for _I am very enthusiastic about this, _and clapped his hands. He felt almost like he was five years old and in a pet store.

But where had they all come from?

Danny must have asked the question out loud, because the little ghosts swirled together, and then formed an arrow pointing to a small portal at the end of the street. Even as Danny watched, it shrunk and vanished. Then the ghosts crowded around Danny again, sounding like nothing so much as a symphony. Danny laughed. They _tickled._

.

.

.

"So," began Tucker, as Danny snuck into 2nd period study hall. "Why are you late and does it have anything to do with why the Ghost Watch Early Morning Report was titled 'Invisible Orchestra Wakes Residents Near Park?'"

"Morning, Danny," said Sam, rolling her eyes at Tucker.

"Hi Sam," whispered Danny. "Sorta. You know how too much ghost energy makes me weird."

"Weirder. It makes you weirder, dude. You're already weird."

"Okay, whatever. Anyway, there are these cute little dudes, these ghosts, that're kind of like remora."

"Remora aren't cute," said Sam. "They're fish."

"No, I mean, they're, um, symbiotic, with other ghosts."

"Okay."

"So they take in energy from other stuff, and process it so that other ghosts can absorb it, basically, in exchange for protection. And, um, a lot of them showed up last night, looking for a place to, um, settle. They live in the park now."

"I get the feeling that you skipped the whole middle of that story," accused Sam, poking Danny with a pencil. "Spill."

"Yeah, well, at about two in the morning they showed up on my street just out of range of my ghost sense, but close enough that I could _feel _them, because apparently finding a new home for them means finding a ghost they can be symbiotic with, and one of the ways they do that is by dumping a lot of ghost energy, and like I said, too much ghost energy makes me weird. So."

"So, you're late because you were high on ghost energy," said Tucker.

"Kind of, yeah," said Danny, blushing. "I, um, didn't realize what was going on, so I kind of just ran around and played with them until, like, six, and then Clockwork showed up and pulled me out and told them that I had a medical condition, and put me to bed, but I was too hyper so I flew over to Springfield, and when I realized what time it was and what I was doing, it was already eight."

"Dude, you have to call us when things like this happen. Sam thought that you had been eaten."

"I did not!"

"Anyway, what does that have to do with the invisible orchestra?"

"Oh. That's their language."

"Really? Weird. You going to try to pick that one up too?"

"Kind of have to. They live in the park, now."


End file.
